John Collinson Nesfield
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

John Collinson Nesfield (14 August 1836 – 28 June 1919) served in various roles as an educator in
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...
and was for some time
curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...
of
St Michael's Church, Highgate St Michael's Church or Church of St Michael, commonly referred to as St Michael's Highgate, is an Anglican parish church in Highgate, North London and a Grade II* listed building. It is the highest elevated church in London. History There are re ...
, London. He wrote numerous books, of which his works on grammar were particularly influential.


Life

John Nesfield was born in 1836 and was the son of a cleric from
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...
, England. He attended Highgate Grammar School from 1852 to 1855 and later taught there from 1859 to 1864. He became a postmaster (holder of a senior scholarship) at
Merton College Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor ...
at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
. There he earned a BA degree in 1860 and was later promoted to an MA in 1862. Nesfield became the curate of
St Michael's Church, Highgate St Michael's Church or Church of St Michael, commonly referred to as St Michael's Highgate, is an Anglican parish church in Highgate, North London and a Grade II* listed building. It is the highest elevated church in London. History There are re ...
, in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
. He began his career in British India in January 1867. There he served initially as a professor at Presidency College and
Krishnagar Government College Krishnagar Government College, established in 1846, is the oldest college in Nadia district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It offers undergraduate courses in arts and sciences and also some postgraduate courses. At first, the college was un ...
, both in the
Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal until 1937, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule in India, Company rule and later a Provinces o ...
, before becoming in May 1872 a Director of Public Instruction (DPI) and schools inspector in
Lower Burma Lower Myanmar (, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta ( Ayeyarwady, Bago and Yangon Regions), as well as coastal regions of the country ( Rakhine and Mon States and Tanintharyi ...
. The
Indian Education Service The Indian Education Service or Indian Educational Service (IES) formed part of the British Raj between 1896 and 1924, when overseas recruitment ceased. It was an administrative organisation running educational establishments in British India, larg ...
was not founded until 1896 and thus he was an employee of the provincial government. In his role as a DPI he took on responsibility for administration and policy-making, rather than being purely a teacher. Nesfield transferred from Lower Burma to become DPI in
Oudh State The Kingdom of Awadh (, , also Oudh State, Kingdom of Oudh, Awadh Subah, or Awadh State) was a Mughal subah, then an independent kingdom, and lastly a British protectorate in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the B ...
in March 1874, then in 1878 became principal of Benares College when the administration of Oudh was subsumed in the newly created
North-Western Provinces and Oudh The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1858, the Nawab-ruled kingd ...
. He joined the inspectorate there in the following year and in 1885 was passed over for promotion to become the province's DPI when, as was not uncommon, the government determined to prefer Edmund White, who was a member of the
Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...
, to an educator. Nesfield objected strenuously to this decision, firing off letters first to the Secretary of State for the province, R. A. Cross, 1st Viscount Cross, and then to
Alfred Comyn Lyall Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (4 January 1835 – 10 April 1911) was a British civil servant, literary historian and poet. Early life Alfred Lyall was born in Coulsdon, Surrey, the second son of Alfred Lyall and Mary Drummond Broadwood, daughter ...
, who was the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces and Chief Commissioner of Oudh. When those appeals failed, he wrote also to the
Viceroy of India The governor-general of India (1833 to 1950, from 1858 to 1947 the viceroy and governor-general of India, commonly shortened to viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the Emperor of ...
,
Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, (21 June 182612 February 1902), was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian era, Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Q ...
, but was again rebuffed. He eventually did achieve the promotion when White retired in August 1892. He had been made a Fellow of the
University of Allahabad The University of Allahabad is a Central university (India), Central University located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 23 September 1887 by an act of Parliament and is recognised as an Institute of National Importance (INI). ...
in 1887, the year of its establishment, and retired from India in October 1894. Issues of promotion were not the only thing about which Nesfield complained during his time in India. Education was particularly poorly developed in the North-Western Provinces and in 1882 he asked the province's Education Commission "what hope is there of reaching the heart or brain of a man who is educated at a cost of four rupees a year?" He was also involved in a dispute that persisted for a while after he retired. There had been investigations regarding whether many of the English and vernacular textbooks prescribed for use in schools of the North-Western Provinces had been contrived so as to provide him with a monopoly on publication. It was eventually agreed that he had acted under the instructions of White, had done so at his own risk, and was providing a much-needed service. He gave the copyrights to a publisher in London after retiring. He had married a missionary, Ellen Blumhardt, and the couple had many children, including Vincent Blumhardt Nesfield who pioneered the use of chlorine in water purification. Nesfield died in 1919.


Influence


Education

Nesfield's ''English Grammar: Past and Present'' was originally written for the market in colonial India. It was later expanded to appeal to students in Britain as well, from young men preparing for various professional examinations to students in "Ladies' Colleges". Other books on the English language by Nesfield include ''A Junior Course In English Composition, A Senior Course In English Composition'', but it was his ''A Manual Of English Grammar and Composition'' that proved really successful both in Britain and her colonies — so much so that it formed the basis for many other grammar and composition primers including but not limited to ''
Warriner's English Grammar and Composition ''Warriner's English Grammar and Composition'' is a series of textbooks on English grammar and Composition (language), composition by John E. Warriner, consisting initially of six books targeted at Educational_stage#US_and_Canada, grades 6 throu ...
'', and ''High School English Grammar and Composition'', fondly called
Wren & Martin ''Wren & Martin'' refers to a single book ''High School English Grammar and Composition'' or collectively, a series of English grammar textbooks written jointly by P. C. Wren and H. Martin. Written primarily for the children of British officer ...
by
P. C. Wren Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 1875 – 22 November 1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for ''Beau Geste'', a much-filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. This ...
and H. Martin. Bibliographer Manfred Görlach is critical, saying of the frequently reprinted ''English Grammar: Past and Present'' that "it is not quite easy to see how its wordiness, lack of clear structure, mixture of synchronic description and diachronic explanation and often unclear definitions gave the book the immense impact it had".


Anthropology

Like
Denzil Ibbetson Sir Denzil Charles Jelf Ibbetson (30 August 1847 – 21 February 1908)Talbot (2012). was an administrator in British India and an author. He served as Deputy Commissioner of Karnal district from 1892 to 1893. He served as Chief- ...
, an administrator of the
British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...
, Nesfield believed that the society of the North-Western Provinces in British India did not permit the rigid imposition of an administratively-defined
caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...
construct as
Herbert Hope Risley Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. He ...
advocated. According to Nesfield, society there was less governed by ideas of caste based on
varna Varna may refer to: Places Europe *Varna, Bulgaria, a city ** Varna Province ** Varna Municipality ** Gulf of Varna ** Lake Varna **Varna Necropolis * Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy * Varna (Šabac), a village in Serbia Asia * Var ...
and instead was more open and fluid. Tribes, which he considered to be kin-based groups that dominated small areas, were the dominant feature of rural life. Caste designators, such as
Jat The Jat people (, ), also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in l ...
and
Rajput Rājpūt (, from Sanskrit ''rājaputra'' meaning "son of a king"), also called Thākur (), is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating fro ...
, were status-based titles to which any tribe that rose to social prominence could lay a claim, and which could be dismissed by their peers if they declined. The debate about caste reflected the contemporary debate around topics such as
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that the Human, human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called "race (human categorization), races", and that empirical evi ...
and the Aryan invasion theory. Anthropologist Ellen Bal notes that


Works

Nesfield's publications include: *''An Essay on the Kanjar Tribe'' (1882) *''On the Results of Primary Education in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh'' (1883) *''Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh'' (1885) *''The Function of Modern Brahmins in Upper India'' (1887) *''Two Essays on the Mushera Tribe'' (1888) *''English Grammar: Past and Present'' (1898) *''A Junior Course In English Composition, A Senior Course In English Composition'' *''A Manual of English Grammar and Composition'' (1898) *English Grammar Series


References

Notes Citations Bibliography * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nesfield, John 1836 births 1919 deaths Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Academic staff of the University of Allahabad History of education in India Administrators in British India Administrators in British Burma Grammarians from England English anthropologists People educated at Highgate School 19th-century English clergy 19th-century English writers 20th-century English clergy 20th-century English writers 19th-century British anthropologists 20th-century British anthropologists